Yong said that Samsung and Apple discussed how the Korean based firm could supply "better parts" to Apple in 2013-2014 after the current contract expires. Both Yong and Cook talked about ways to improve the relationship between the two tech titans. Apple was Samsung's second largest customer last year trailing only Sony. This year, Apple is expected to vault into the top spot with $7.8 billion in component orders to Samsung.

There has been speculation that Apple would look somewhere else for its chips, possibly buying from TSMC. The Samsung CEO says that Samsung is deciding whether to continue its legal battle with Apple or to hold off. Samsung's head of global marketing had said last month that the Korean based firm was going to start being more aggressive in its legal fight with Apple, saying that the company had held back because the latter was a big customer of the firm.

Samsung's mobile president Shin Jong-kyun said that the company is taking patents very seriously which can be seen in the design of the just announced Samsung Galaxy Nexus which,as we reported, is supposedly free of any design or parts that can be challenged in a patent infringement suit.

posted on Oct 20, 2011, 2:08 AM 5

Posts: 3723; Member since: Aug 16, 2011

posted on Oct 20, 2011, 2:10 AM 0

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

it would be more like "slave" than indentured servant. that would be more of what they are now. a servant for a few years before being set free. apple apparently doesnt like that so they are trying to push them back into servitude.
I say, lock the contract down, then sue back as hard as possible. :)

Posts: 4721; Member since: May 17, 2011

posted on Oct 20, 2011, 9:19 AM 3

Posts: 2014; Member since: May 03, 2011

samsung gets less than 5% of its revenue from apple...if apple could move away from samsung am sure they would but the fact is that with the demand and popularity of the iphones/ipad,samsung seem to be the only company that can provide apple the amount of chips etc it needs in time

posted on Oct 20, 2011, 11:30 AM 1

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

absolutely.. but without samsungs top notch parts, the 3gs, 4, 4s, and soon the 5, would be processorless and made of crap parts like snapdragon cores instead of modded exynos cores.
Apple NEEDS samsung.. Apple is just a big customer to samsung. important yes, but not nearly as important as samsung is to apple.
the 5% stat is disingenuous though. Of the totality of samsung, yes thats true.. but samsung electronics is a seperate operational entity from other samsung arms like construction and utilities.
Apple is the single largest customer for the mobile division. It would hurt, initially, but it would free up a lot of room to licence out the exynos and hummingbird chips to other manufacturers, since apple wouldnt be buying all thats left over like they do now.
More samsung chips in more phones.. that works for me!
Kinda seems like that would be a double slap to the face. the loss of the super high end samsung technology, then samsung giving it to even more iphone competitors. double bad for apple.

posted on Oct 20, 2011, 2:34 PM 2

Posts: 2383; Member since: Jul 18, 2010

It's not Apple exactly, it was Steve Jobs. He was obsessed with destroying and Android.
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." - from a cnet article.
Tim Cook is a logistics man, he's responsible for Apple's supply chain. Since he took the time to meet the Samsung CEO during the memorial service I'd think he'd be much more open to reason, negotiation, and licensing deals.

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